• Honoured Art Worker of Russia (2008)
Damir Ismagilov was born in Moscow in 1959. In 1978 he graduated from Moscow Theatre Arts and Technical College, and in 1987 – from the Production Faculty of Moscow Art Theatre School.
The same year Damir Ismagilov joined the Moscow Art Theatre, where he was in charge of lighting effects. Went on to head the lighting department of the Small Stage, where he began his career as a lighting designer, working on productions of The Road, Father and Son, The Carriage, Equus and The Rose Tattoo.
During 1982–1987 Damir Ismagilov was involved in the reconstruction of the theatre building on Kamergersky Lane, starting with a project to design technical lighting equipment for the stage. Has supervised the quality control of installation and initialisation works for the technical lighting department of the Main Stage.
In 1987 he was appointed Principal Lighting Designer of the Moscow Art Theatre. Has designed a large number productions there, including Boris Godunov, The Cherry Orchard, Woe from Wit, The Storm, The Marriage, Masquerade, Three Sisters, Cyrano de Bergerac, Antigone, Sacred Fire, Crime and Punishment, Copenhagen, The Siege, The Petty Bourgeois, The White Guard, Playing the Victim, King Lear, The Forest, Messrs Golovlev, The Master and Margarita, Prima Donnas, Pillowman, The Pickwick Club and Karamazovs.
Since 1996 Damir Ismagilov has been working with the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia (since 2002 – Principal Lighting Designer). Was involved in the construction of its New Stage and the reconstruction of its Historic Stage. As a lighting designer he has worked on productions of the ballets Swan Lake, Insomnia, Russian Hamlet, Ward No. 6, Paquita, Class Concert, Flames of Paris and Cinderella and the operas Aida, Iolanta, The Love for Three Oranges, Khovanshchina, Francesca da Rimini, Nabucco, The Gambler, The Snow Maiden, Macbeth, Mazepa, Der fliegende Holländer, Rosenthal’s Children, War and Peace, Boris Godunov, Carmen, The Queen of Spades, The Tsar’s Bride and Salammbô to name but a few.
Principal Lighting Designer of Moscow’s Helikon Opera (since 2004) and Theatre Art Studio (since 2005). Has worked with the Russian Academic Youth Theatre, Moscow’s Maly Theatre, the Yermolova Theatre, the Oleg Tabakov Theatre, the Russian Army Theatre, the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, the Mossoviet Theatre, the Moscow Operetta and renowned theatres in St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk, Kazan, Ufa, Oryol, Orenburg and Yekaterinburg. Deputy Chairman of the All-Russian Association of Lighting Designers.
At the Mariinsky Theatre he created lighting designs for the operas Rigoletto (2005), The Maid of Pskov (2008, revival of the 1952 production), Mazepa (2009, revival of the 1950 production), Dead Souls (2011) and the ballet Konyok-Gorbunok (The Little Humpbacked Horse) (2009).
Has worked with leading Russian and international stage directors such as Oleg Yefremov, Lev Dodin, Oleg Tabakov, Valery Fokin, Sergey Zhenovach, Leonid Kheifets, Roman Viktyuk, Mark Rozovsky, Kama Ginkas, Galina Volchek, Roman Kozak, Kirill Serebrennikov, Tadashi Suzuki, Szász János, Temur Chkheidze, Nikolai Sheiko, Mindaugas Karbauskis, Grigory Kozlov, Yury Butusov, Yevgeny Pisarev and Konstantin Bogomolov. Has brought to life concepts by set designers including David Borovsky, Valery Levental, Sergey Barkhin, Mart Kitayev, Oleg Sheintsis, Eduard Kochergin, Alexander Borovsky, Tatiana Selvinskaya, Vyacheslav Okunev, Boris Messerer, Alla Kozhenkova, Igor Popov, Georgy Alexi-Meskhishvili, Yury Kharikov, Nikolai Simonov, Yury Ustinov and Zinovy Margolin.
He taught at Moscow Theatre Arts and Technical College (1987–1990) and Moscow Art Theatre School (2000–2015).
Four-time winner of Russia’s Golden Mask National Theatre Award in the category “Best Work of a Lighting Designer” (2010 – for the Theatre Art Studio’s The River Potudan; 2011 – for the Alexandrinsky Theatre’s Hamlet; 2012 – for the Sovremennik Theatre’s Enemies. A Love Story and for the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia’s The Golden Cockerel). Recipient of the Stanislavsky Prize in the category “Scenography” (2014; “For contribution to the artistic design of performances. The art of a lighting designer”), the City of Moscow Prize for Literature and the Arts (2016) and the Master of Light award in the category “Lighting Designers of Theatre and Show Productions” (2017).
Together with Elena Drevalyova he has written the book Theatre Lighting (2005, 2014).
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